FILM/INDIEFEST "Oh, it's a problem with women," Serge Gainsbourg says in an interview clip only a few seconds into Pascal Forneri's entertaining and energetic made-for-TV documentary Gainsbourg, The Man Who Loved Women. For Gainsbourg, the problem was a rewarding one — women were the vehicle by which he moved from a brooding writer of chanson into a national and international provocateur and icon. Read more »

Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century.

February is Black History Month, a good time to honor the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of the most important yet too often overlooked leaders in the long struggle for racial equality.

The union, the first to be founded by African Americans, was involved deeply in political as well as economic activity. It joined with the NAACP to serve as the major political vehicle of African Americans from the late 1930s through the 1950s.

Together, the two organizations led the drives in those years against racial discrimination in employment, housing, education and other areas, and in doing so, laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Read more »

A couple weeks ago I shot a long-winded email to former Bay Area DJ and producer Chief Boima. I had just finished speaking to Dun Dun of the Los Rakas crew for what eventually became this article, and he mentioned an upcoming EP with former Bay Area DJ and producer Boima. Now, if you don’t know about Boima, you need to get acquainted with the Banana Clipz digital funk on Ghetto Bassquake (for free download, too). It’s a joint instrumental album between Boima and Oro 11 of Bersa Discos that merges electronic architectonics with rhythms, melodies, and sound bits from the African diaspora. Enough of that, though -- Boima withstood my long-windedness, and after a couple exchanges, he did all the explaining. Read more »

City Hall kicked off its annual Black History month celebrations with a talk by Los Angeles philanthropist and former Xerox Corp. VP Bernard Kinsey about the importance of debunking myths about the absence of blacks in American history. And Mayor Ed Lee, who had just met with five dozen unemployed black construction workers from the Bayview, revealed how, when he was growing up in the projects in Seattle, his neighbors were black, and an African American named Darnell was one of the most loyal patrons of the restaurant that Lee’s father was trying to make succeed.Read more »

The Companion Piece is a charmingly inventive new work of devised theater conceived by actor Beth Wilmurt and directed by Mark Jackson for Z Space. It unfolds as a series of arch "meta" vaudevillian routines by a frustrated long-time duo (played with uncommon chemistry and comedic finesse by Wilmurt and Christopher Kuckenbaker).Read more »

I don't have a lot of pet peeves — that would break my lease. Other than, say, invading a country for no reason, making fun of people with mental illnesses and addictions, refusing to pay taxes because you think people of color are moochers, or ordering Uggs online, still, not much reliably gets my goat, ties it down with friendship bracelets and Danish dreadlocks, and forces it to listen to Ke$ha remixed by Tiësto while wearing Juicy Couture or Pink by Victoria's Secret.

Tanuki Restaurant on California and Sixth Avenue was my first taste of the Richmond and my millionth of raw fish. On a quiet block in unfamiliar territory far from Mother Mission, I saw her “Open Sushi” neon sign and walked towards the light. But before I go on, I should admit that my heart belongs to another: We Be Sushi on 16th and Valencia. Theirs is simple, clean, casual, and delicious fish. But as every baby bird must one day leave its nest, so must I leave my small, insular universe to discover nourishment in new land.

Powerful business interests constantly put pressure on City Hall to do their bidding rather than act in the public interest. Theoretically, they're supposed to report who they're lobbying, on whose behalf, and how much they're being paid, but that doesn't always happen. Instead, some of this city's most powerful players operate with little public scrutiny.Read more »

Why do most alien encounter stories involve sexual liaison? Leaving aside the non-believers' theory that the yarns are the result of pervy souls in need of some quality time with a loved one, one must come to the conclusion that for the aliens, sex is part of some higher purpose. (Just kidding -- how much higher can you get?) The folks at Bent, the Bay's party for kinky youth, have this figgered, of course. This month, when many events are turning pink and heart-shaped, the costumed kinkfest pays homage to the greys, the greens, the purples, and the scaled. It's an alien get-down, and we're all invited! Just be sure and brush up on your E.T. anatomy before you go. You don't wanna be “that girl” that gets freaked out by an extra orifice or three.

A little bit of a break from our usual political ranting: Johnny talks about telling his kids about death and we discuss why it's so easy to sugarcoat it (and talk about God and an afterlife) but in a secular household, it's better to tell your kids the truth about everything, from death to sex and drugs. Agree? No? Listen and argue with us after the jump. Read more »

I got an orange Pepe T-shirt at Needles and Pens' release party for Matt Furie's new comic Hot Topik. What better way to also celebrate the fourth and latest issue of Furie's boy's club, in which Pepe and pals Andy, Brett, and Landwolf are joined by two new characters, Whitey (a zit), and Bird-Dog? Read more »

The battle to saveKUSF reached City Hall for the second consecutive week yesterday, with a rally including music, and Board of Supervisors discussion of the resolution asking USF and the FCC to rescind the sale of the station. Outside, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi spoke to the crowd, placing the sale of KUSF within the context of a larger attack on public access to media in the city, state, and country, and asking those present to be "warriors on behalf of public access" in the event that the resolution doesn't pass with unanamity and an emergency committee hearing must be held. KUSF Music Director Irwin Swirnoff also spoke, and then introduced new Drag City artist Ty Segall, a former USF student whose albums have been KUSF mainstays. On its Facebook page, the campaign to Save KUSF is directing people to www.savekusf.org to make contributions towards the $10,000 needed by the end of this week for it to retain its FCC lawyer. (As of Wednesday, $3000 has been raised.) A look at some of yesterday's events after the jump.

Social construct-questioning rap duo (trio if you count the group's hypeman, we should) Das Racist is coming to the Independent tonight – but don't worry white people, the show's already sold out, which means that rather than sit through a scene like this, you can read the following blog post and still be able to participate in discussions of the group's artistic merit and stainless steel balls with your friends at brunch this weekend.

Here we have assembled an Interwebs dossier on the three Wesleyan boys that would call racism on oh-so-many things in our modern day society. Who would have ever thought, back in those halcyon “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” days that we'd be calling them astute lyricists. Which we are. And to say they're self-important, well that would be like saying it about Kanye West: a waste of time. Anyways, here's your Das Racist 101. Read more »